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HOLLYWOOD, Florida – Omar Figueroa Jr. stepped on the Florida Athletic Commission’s scale at his lowest weight in eight years Friday afternoon.
Figueroa officially weighed 139¾ pounds for his 12-round, 140-pound fight against Sergey Lipinets on Saturday night at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Lipinets, a late replacement for Adrien Broner, came in at exactly the same weight as Figueroa.
Kazakhstan’s Lipinets stepped in for Broner on five days’ notice. Broner withdrew from this “Showtime Championship Boxing” main event Monday morning due to mental health issues.
Figueroa (28-2-1, 19 KOs), of Weslaco, Texas, will end a 15-month layoff in this WBC elimination match. He sought treatment for his mental health after suffering a technical-knockout loss to welterweight contender Abel Ramos (27-5-2, 21 KOs) in May 2021 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
Lipinets last fought in April 2021, when undefeated Philadelphia native Jaron Ennis (29-0, 27 KOs, 1 NC) knocked him out in the sixth round of a 12-round welterweight bout at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Ennis dropped Lipinets, a former IBF junior welterweight champ, once apiece in the fourth and sixth rounds.
Both Figueroa, 32, and Lipinets, 33, have moved back down to the junior welterweight division following welterweight losses in their most recent appearances. Most online sportsbooks list Lipinets as a 3-1 favorite to defeat Figueroa.
The official weights for the first three fights Showtime will televise before Figueroa-Lipinets are listed below.
Showtime
8 p.m. ET; 5 p.m. PT
Albert Puello (20-0, 10 KOs), San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic, 139½ pounds vs. Batyr Akhmedov (9-1, 8 KOs), Oktyabr, Uzbekistan, 139¾ pounds, 12 rounds for the vacant WBA super lightweight title.
Roger Gutierrez (26-3-1, 20 KOs), Maracaibo, Venezuela, 130 pounds vs. Hector Luis Garcia (15-0, 10 KOs, 3 NC), San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic, 130 pounds, 12 rounds for Gutierrez’s WBA super featherweight title.
Brandun Lee (25-0, 22 KOs), La Quinta, California, 142¾ pounds vs. Will Madera (17-1-3, 10 KOs), Albany, New York, 10 rounds, welterweights.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.